For any new era to be given a chance to thrive, it requires the support staff to be in good working order. The Bermuda Government requires it, private enterprise requires it, and so, too, do the myriad organisations that make up working life in this country. This office is no different.

Much has been said and written about a change of leadership at The Royal Gazette, and the historical nature of it, but there are many behind the scenes whose expertise will be called on to help to make this a success.

They are the unseen, the unsung heroes who go about their profession day in and day out with a determined commitment to excellence: writers, sub-editors, proofreaders, graphic designers, pre-press production, sales and even the clerical staff, whose roles may be underestimated but are essential to keeping the ship afloat.

For while there will always be a leader, one who is the first line of attack — and defence — they are at the heart of what makes any news organisation tick.

On the front line, there will be changes in how we aim to present the news; they will be neither wholesale nor radical (or at least we hope not), but they will come — and we hope the public will come to accept and to appreciate them.

John F Kennedy once said: “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

Our future is an exciting one; it has to be. To walk into an office first thing and not be excited about the change you can bring about is to have no ambition at all.

We are expected to have a fire in our bellies, a burning desire to tell someone's story but also a certain steel to cut to the heart of a chase that some may not want us to run. Our role as truth seekers is often a thankless one but it is a role that must be pursued. No matter the difficulty; no matter the opposition.

However, in our quest to seek the truth, we bear a responsibility to be fair, balanced and to possess a sensitivity that keeps us in touch with our society. These are traits that should be first and foremost in any journalist's handbook.

The world is changing at pace and we need to keep pace with that change. Long gone are the days when we could wait for the seven o'clock news to find out what is happening in Bermuda, and the world. The average person, with tablet or other handheld gadget to hand, knows already but then expects us to tell them what it means.

What it means to them. How does it affect their life. How does it affect Bermuda. We are smack-dab in the middle of technological change — there is no sidestepping it in the hope that it does not arrive at our doorstep. Aspiring journalists, and those entering the workforce in other fields, are expected to be in step with this change. So, too, those who are longer in the tooth.

Some of it, as is the case in certain forms of social media, is change for the bad. But the vast majority is change for the good, change to be embraced and to be taken to the next level for future generations to improve upon further.

However, as President Kennedy implies, those unable, or unwilling, to embrace this change are not for the future.

We believe we have the personnel in place to adapt to this changing world. Much has been asked of them already and more will be asked in the near future as the paper aims to become more modernised while realising its primary aim.

It is the aim of any community servant. To be of good and valuable service to the community.

Enablers key to tackling crime

Working men's clubs in Bermuda, by their very nature, are places where one should be able to relax after a hard day in the office or out in the field.

It is not necessarily somewhere to drink your troubles away, but an environ where one can get away from it all, meet up with a few mates and take stock of life before or after reuniting with family.

While it is not uncommon for altercations to occur at premises where alcohol is on sale, a working men's club should never be the venue for acts of gun violence.

This is not the Wild, Wild West; this is sunny Bermuda.

That which took place at Bailey's Bay Cricket Club last week was an utter nonsense and further evidence that no one is safe from the evil that “men” do for as long as we struggle to come to grips with a dangerous culture that has enveloped segments of our beautiful Island.

There is only so much that the police can do. We as Bermudians and Bermuda residents have roles to play to ostracise those who would hold this country to ransom. We are but 70,000 and those who perpetrate evil — the killers, drug traffickers, robbers — a small minority. However, their figure is magnified comfortably by the enablers: family, girlfriends, boyfriends, “friends”.

These are the people the country appeals to in hope that the spiral that we have descended into over the past two decades can be arrested. “Witch-hunt” may not be the most apt word, but the consequences if unchecked can be disastrous for our future.

The excuses trotted out for those with evil intent are many and varied, with social repression getting the most “hits”, but the odds are that bad people will do bad things whether in times of affluence or when recession bites.

The time is nigh that we have to say “enough”.

Lauding two beacons of hope in our community

Residents making meaningful contributions to Bermuda society or representing the Island with pride and dignity are to be celebrated.

Desmond Crockwell and Lillian Lightbourn are among that number and are the first of many to be acknowledged at least twice weekly in this new undertaking of the paper's op-ed pages.

Mr Crockwell's initiative to provide inspiration for the Island's children and to put their achievements in a wider focus is laudable. The former Bailey's Bay cricketer, who would have been among many that cringed at the news of a shooting at his club last week, is a symbol of the positivity that we crave from our young men.

He could easily have taken a different path when in his impressionable teens or twenties but chose not to. Instead, he is a beacon of hope for our youth. The lesson is salutary.

Likewise, Ms Lightbourn. It is one thing to be blessed with beauty, quite another not to be defined by it. Her stance in standing by her principles while trying to make her way in the cut-throat world of international modelling has taken guts. In the world of “less is more”, she has gone for “more is less” so that it is the content of her character that grabs the spotlight rather than a see-through nightdress.

Such standards may cost her in the short term, but over the duration of her career, she will be all the richer.

Hers is an example that those among our young women who are subject to peer and other pressures would do well to take notice of.

And, suddenly, following in the footsteps of Miss Bermuda 2014, as Alyssa Rose must after her coronation at The Fairmont Southampton last night, has become all the more daunting.